Chapter 15: You Can't Kill Something That's Already Dead
Shouta keeps his eyes on Phantom, even as the vigilante blinks in and out of visibility. It isn't much; he knows that he can't stop his Quirk, and nothing probably can stop that powerhouse of a problem child, but it's still nice to know that there's someone else out there trying to help, even if he's technically breaking the law to do so.
And probably going to give him gray hairs much earlier than he needs to get them. Hizashi is going to make fun of him for sure.
Just looking into some stuff, huh? Shouta thinks, grunting as he wraps his capture weapon around a villain, and throws her off into the distance. They're trying to overwhelm Shouta with numbers, so he can't get out and try and find his students, his kids. The warp villain disappeared, and took them who knows where, at this point. Hopefully they would all be within the building, still. Hopefully they would all be okay, safe, and alive. They're hero students, of course-- they're going to have to deal with villains soon enough-- but not now. Not in their first year of high school.
But they'll be fine. They're strong. They have strong Quirks, they can protect themselves and each other.
He spots the vigilante in the distance, again, hood fallen off to reveal a head of curly white hair. Why is Phantom still here?
Of course, he appreciates the help from the vigilante, as irritating as the kid could be sometimes. Poking his nose around in things such as this, without even thinking of consequences, is incredibly reckless. He could get killed doing that. But why hasn't Phantom left? His Quirk is what gets him easily out of situations, with his powers that let him mimic a ghost. What's the point in a vigilante staying for a fight like this?
Though, what kind of ghost can summon energy shields? That's still strange for Shouta, and he'd seen it in action a few days ago. When the vigilante had warned him there's a villainous group setting out to kill All Might.
And strange that just a few days after Phantom's warning, a group attacks one of All Might's classes to kill the man. It's happenstance that they're not here-- it's pure chance that the man had used up his time heroing on his way to work that he wouldn't be able to hold his stupid hero form for the two hour field trip they'd scheduled for the day. Shouta had sent the message along, but clearly, the hero had dealt with so many death threats that something like this-- a brazen attack on a U.A. campus-- would be laughed at.
As if, but here they are, fighting against a brazen attack.
Still, he can't bother to think too much about anything other than the villains around him. One distraction, one small thought to pull his attention away, and someone could die. He needs to narrow his focus—on the main villain, the one at the front, covered in hands. Shigaraki, Phantom had called him. With Phantom taking a brunt of the villains attacking them, Shouta can get his shot in at Shigaraki and end this for good.
The villain army isn't that strong or unified. Once they're down, most of them aren't trying to get back up. No order, just a mess of chaos, like they'd been put together last-minute.
Now. Phantom pushes aside a villain behind him, and Shouta sprints for Shigaraki. It's easy to wrap his capture weapon around the man's arm and pull him down from the small ledge he stood upon, watching the chaos unfold in front of him. He stabs his elbows into his rib cage, which gets a grunt from the man, but it doesn't seem like he's just the leader. There's some fight in him, too.
Fine. I'll still take him out.
"You know, it's hard to see because you keep moving around, but there's a second where your hair falls." The villain chuckles, grabbing tightly onto Shouta's elbow. "For a hero like yourself, you should really work on your weaknesses, shouldn't you?"
Don't blink, don't blink—his eyes are so dry. It's burning, it's burning, he's trying to ignore the burning, but Shouta has to blink, and he does. It's only a second of brief relief, but it's enough for Shigaraki's Quirk to activate, as he wraps all of his fingers around Shouta's elbow and the fabric begins to turn to ash, followed shortly by his skin.
Shit. He doesn't even think, he goes for the cheapest shot he can get (just a little above the villain's crotch, he should've aimed lower) and jumps back. The flesh on his elbow has all but decayed, exposing delicate red muscle underneath. It isn't the worst wound he's ever experienced, but it's not a walk in the park, as every small movement in his arm explodes into pain.
"Eraserhead—" He hears Phantom yell, but it's distant.
"You're not good at this, are you, Eraserhead? You're the sort of player that's good at surprise attacks. Taking the enemy out quickly. Speed over defense." Okay, the man is starting to lose Shouta with the analogies a bit. But so do all villains, after a while. Once they start monologuing, it's usually the same thing. I'm going to rule the world, I'm going to destroy everything, yada yada yada. "But even so, you still jumped in to take us out from the front. You and your little student over there. Do you think it's noble, allowing your student to sacrifice himself for the rest of your team, like this?"
Shouta doesn't think it's worth responding to the villain, Shigaraki. He's starting to spout nonsense. Phantom's taken care of most of the villains in the plaza by himself (impressive), but there's still a small line between him and Shouta. They're attacking Phantom too quickly—nobody seems to really recognize Phantom as the vigilante.
"By the way, Eraserhead. I'm not the last boss."
The shadow that had been standing right by Shigaraki—a large villain with a mutant-type Quirk that Shouta had barely focused on, since they had just been stood still the whole time—is right next to him now. The villain raises an arm, and—
The world goes dark.
✨👻✨
Izuku's an idiot. He didn't even take a glance towards the large villain that was standing by Shigaraki's side like an obedient soldier. The whole time, standing perfectly still.
Why would he, if there were so many other villains around him? He had to help Eraserhead. He had to.He couldn't let him down, if he was here, he had to help, Izuku has to help. His core feels like it's about to burst inside of his chest, but the large villain moving at an amazing speed makes him freeze for a second, and that hesitation, that brief hesitation—Izuku will never, ever pause like that again in a battle, because villains have their arms around Izuku, pulling him back, as the large villain smashes Eraserhead's face into the ground.
"Meet the Nomu!" Shigaraki says, laughing with glee as the villain—the Nomu—smashes their hand onto Eraserhead's other elbow. Even from so far away, Izuku can hear a small crack as the bones shatter underneath.
No.
No, no, no, no—
It's child's play to break out of the grasp from the villains. Easy as intangibility. The villains should've expected it, but they stumble into each other once Izuku is free from their grasp, as he bolts across the plaza, straight for the Nomu.
"My Nomu is quite the creation, isn't it?" Shigaraki taunts to Eraserhead. "Oh, it's such a shame that All Might isn't here to meet his shadow."
As Izuku gets closer, he can feel something emanating from the Nomu. Something he'd written off before, but it feels—it feels strong. Something catches in his throat. It almost feels like his ghost sense is activating, but it isn't quite there. But there's a feeling—
PAIN-PAIN-PAIN-PAIN
--too many feelings—
PAIN-PAIN-PAIN-PAIN
--coming from the Nomu, as if it had a ghost core of its own.
Oh, whatever scientific nightmare the Nomu was, Izuku isn't curious enough to unpack all of that now. He focuses on the target, and Izuku shoots himself at the Nomu, using his palms to knock the creature off of Eraserhead's back, sending it flying a few feet away.
The Nomu stays still once the momentum stops, waiting for its next order. The pause gives Izuku a chance to look down at Eraserhead. He finds a pulse quickly, but it's not as high as it should be. It's slower-- not as slow as his human's heartrate, but still slow enough to be dangerous. Shit. I need to get you out of here. But how...?
"—What the hell? Who are—" Shigaraki balks, before his voice darkens. "You! I thought you were one of those NPC students, but you're not. What are you doing here?"
"What do you think I'm doing here?" Izuku yells back. He stands up from kneeling by Eraserhead. "You tried to recruit me into your "kill All Might plan", did you think I would just forget about it?"
Shigaraki growls at him but doesn't respond.
"Oh, yeah, sure, I might hate hero society as much as the next vigilante, but it doesn't mean I'm willing to kill people for it, Shigaraki." Izuku adds. "You're stupid if you think otherwise."
"I don't have time to deal with a cheater like you. Nomu! Kill him!"
Kill me? Ha! Izuku looks to his side, watching as the Nomu stands up and charges towards him. He braces for impact, summoning an ecto-shield from deep within his core. It isn't strong enough; it cracks under the pressure from the Nomu's fists, but it holds the Nomu in place long enough for Izuku to get a closer look at the creature. Tall, built like a brick house, with ink-black skin, and a beak. Muscly brain is exposed at the top of the creature's head-- a weakness or an oversight, Izuku didn't know, but what catches him off guard is what the Nomu sounds like. It doesn't make any verbal sound, but he can hear a song coming from deep within its chest, a song that resonates within Izuku's own core.
PAIN-PAIN-PAIN-PAIN
Quirks are just itty-bitty micro ghost cores. Every Quirked person has one, a roughly 1/100th of an actual ghost core, Izuku thinks, repeats in his head, like a mantra. Someone—or something—would need to be hundreds of times stronger than me to get my powers out of commission.
But he can look into the Nomu, and he sees it. Stitched together, somehow, he can see the tiny, itty bity Quirk factors, mushed together into a horrifying mess. There's gotta be ten, maybe even twenty, Quirk Factors haphazardly sewn together, like a child's art project. It's uneven and sharp in some places, but even and smooth in other places-- completely chaotic. This is a science experiment, a creature made from life and death, just like—
Just like him.
Izuku pulses his core out to the creature. LET-ME-HELP
PAIN-PAIN-PAIN-PAIN
There's too much going on within the Nomu to focus on one specific Quirk factor. It's fighting too much inside, and on top of that, the Nomu only seems to listen to Shigaraki.
Izuku's shield shatters, but he catches the Nomu's fists with his hands.
"You're strong, I'll give you that, Phantom. But my Nomu is stronger than All Might. You are going to die!" Shigaraki says.
Izuku tries not to, but he laughs. He laughs loudly and proudly. He cranes his neck to look at Shigaraki, pushing back against the Nomu with all the strength he could. "You're wrong about that-- you can't kill something that's already dead!"
He pushes, and sends the Nomu flying across the plaza again. As it's temporarily dazed, Izuku takes his time to dig his arms underneath Eraserhead's body, and he picks him up. It's a little awkward, because Izuku is still a pretty short teenager and Eraserhead is a lanky full-grown man, but with his flight, it's pretty easy to get high enough in the air and away from the Nomu.
But where should he go? There's no guaranteed safe spot, and Izuku's going to have take on the Nomu. He's probably the only one strong enough to do that, right now. But he doesn't want Shigaraki or the large being made of multiple Quirks to have a shot and hurting Eraserhead even more. Then where...?
There. Across the plaza, Izuku can see three students emerging from the shipwreck zone. Most of the low-rate thugs are either out of commission from both Eraserhead and Izuku's combined efforts, or deciding that the tide is turning and they're trying to escape. Izuku shoots—carefully-- towards the students. One of them is Shinsou, which he recognizes, and he carefully falls back down to the ground to meet them halfway across the plaza.
✨👻✨
The day seemed to happen too fast. Hitoshi was ready for a nice little field trip. It was just to a place on the grounds, so technically, they didn't need to fill out any permission slips for it. But he wishes that they had handed those out, and that his father maybe would've questioned it, and Hitoshi would have gone in more cynically, because maybe then, he would've been ready for the villain attack.
And there were so many of them. Aizawa-sensei took out a lot on his own, which is pretty cool, but Hitoshi got warped away from it before his class could escape. He ended up in the Shipwreck zone, with Tsuyu and Mineta, which sucked, but Tsuyu's pretty chill, at least. It was a combined effort with Tsuyu shooting them as far as she could across the shipwreck zone with Shinsou on her back (and Mineta, too, but Mineta weighs as much as a bag of grapes). The only useful thing Mineta had done was throw some of his sticky purple balls into the water, which trapped a few of the villains together.
And then he sees him. Phantom? Here? How did he...?
The vigilante shoots over to where he and his two classmates are trying to auspiciously get across the plaza to escape. Luckily, most of the villains have either been taken down, or decided it isn't worth it anymore. Phantom's almost as beat-up as their sensei, but he doesn't seem to notice, even with the vibrant green blood that's pouring from lacerations cut into his clothes.
Green blood? No time to unpack that.
His hood is down, exposing a mess of curly white, glowing hair, but he has his mask again. The one he'd given to Hitoshi dissolved into a weird puddle of goop shortly after he'd disappeared following Hitoshi's rescue, which was odd, but not the weirdest thing he'd ever heard of.
"Hi, no time to explain why I'm here, here's Eraser-san, uh, try not to let him die, please? I'm supposed to be the only dead man walking here." Phantom speaks fast, faster than Hitoshi has ever heard. It's almost like he doesn't even need to breathe. But, to be fair to Phantom, there are other pressing manners, namely: one giant fucking monster on the other side of the plaza who looks like it wants to eat them all alive, and is the cause for their teacher's current state in the first place.
Phantom locks his cyan eyes with Hitoshi, first.
"Shinsou, I know you can brainwash anyone that comes nearby. If any villain approaches you, try and get the upper-hand verbally." Phantom looks over at Tsuyu, and his eyes flicker around, clearly thinking of something. "Miss, I can see you've got a frog-like Quirk, use it to defend Shinsou if he can't brainwash anybody. And you—"
He turns to Mineta.
Mineta looks like he's about to start sobbing.
"—Um, don't worry about anything. Okay, bye!"
And just like that, he's gone again, and Aizawa-sensei is left on the ground in front of them. Hitoshi immediately dives for their teacher, and—there's a pulse, it's there, he isn't dead yet, but that doesn't mean they should count on it staying like that. Tsuyu helps Hitoshi hoist their teacher over his shoulder, and Tsu uses what strength she has in her upper-body to pick up Aizawa-sensei's legs so they don't drag on the ground behind them.
"Who was that, Shinsou-kun?"
"Um. Well, have you heard of the Musutafu Phantom?"
"No, I haven't."
Mineta decides to be the only thing he could be: the most useless person possible. "Oh my god, I have! He's a vigilante, isn't he? What is he doing here? Is he working for those villains?"
"Shut it, Mineta," Tsuyu uses her tongue to slap Mineta upside the head. "If he's working for the villains, why would he fighting that… that thing?"
Hitoshi glances across the plaza. Phantom is fighting that monster, and barely keeping up with it.
"How do you know that vigilante, Shinsou-kun?"
"He saved me, once." Hitoshi explains. He's really glad that he wasn't sent to the fire zone. He still feels like he's going to wake up one day and find himself back in his dad's old office, surrounded by the flames. It was one of the coolest moments of his life, probably second or third to getting into U.A.'s hero course and meeting Eraserhead. As excited as he should be, there's something cold settling within Hitoshi. "But I have no fucking idea how he knows what my Quirk is."
✨👻✨
Once he's sure Eraserhead is in the most capable hands he can find, Izuku shoots back across the plaza. The Nomu is waiting for him, and catches Izuku's flying-punch easily.
They trade blows for a bit—Izuku's lucky his ghost form is a lot more durable than a mere human form, or he'd probably be fully dead by now. The Nomu has a shock-resistance, or maybe has a shock-absorbance (or maybe both) Quirk. It would explain why he can take Izuku's hits so easily. It's hard to tell what the other Quirks are that are stitched together into the unliving abomination of science in front of him. At least a shock absorption Quirk, and maybe a regeneration Quirk, given how quickly it recovers and enhanced strength, too--
The Nomu wraps its large hands around Izuku's wrist, and swings him up into the air, and hits him right in the middle of his chest. If Izuku had ribs, they would all be broken (and by the time this fight is over, he might have broken ribs, or at least, he's going to have a lot of bruises). Izuku is sent flying away, landing on his back. It feels like something crunches underneath him. He hopes it's not anything important.
Still, he has to keep going.
PAIN-PAIN-PAIN-PAIN
There has to be a way—
The Nomu charges at him again, grabbing Izuku and swinging him up, again. This time it lets Izuku just fall to the ground without any more hits.
Izuku's core screams. LET ME HELP YOU, LET ME HELP YOU!
PAIN-PAIN-PAIN-PAIN
And then, a small voice,
"Help?"
"Y-yes." Izuku stumbles over his words, ignoring the pain eating away at him. He can feel his core working overtime to heal him up faster, hopefully it would be enough. Izuku keeps his voice low and soft, like he's talking to a small child. The voice sounded small, after all-- God, please don't let the Nomu be made from children. "I—I can help you. I-I think. I think I can make the pain go away."
PAIN-PAIN-PAIN
"Help us? You can help us?"
"I'll try. You just need to—"
The Nomu rears back, lifting both fists in the air as Izuku lays under it.
"—let me!"
PAIN-PAIN
PAIN
Well, this is probably it, isn't it? Izuku's going to find out if he can fully die or not. He probably can't, knowing his luck, but this final hit will definitely knock him out, and then he'll transform back for sure, and that'll be the end of his vigilante life. He had a good run. Three months now, being a vigilante, helping take down evil guys? He'll probably get arrested and maybe even tried as an adult, or maybe sent off to some scientists to figure out how the hell he ticks, but it was fun while it lasted.
He closes his eyes, and waits for the blow.
After a second of it not hitting him, he opens one eye. The fists are frozen, inches above Izuku's head.
"--What? Nomu, what are you doing?"
"You said you can help us," the mini-core hums at Izuku, in a language only he can understand. It sounds like overlapping voices. It's TV static and the sound of the wind during a thunderstorm and dew falling off of leaves in the morning. Perhaps whatever it is-- whoever it is-- is a memory, an echo, left in a Quirk factor after its body dies. Science says matter cannot be created or destroyed, so perhaps a Quirk factor is the same way? It prevents people from becoming ghosts when they die, but maybe there are small, little Quirk-factors floating about, leftover from people's deaths that no one can see.
The Nomu starts making garbled noises, a mess that Izuku can't understand. The Quirk Factors, talking to each other, in a language only the Nomu could know.
"What are you going to do?" It asks.
Izuku sits up, ignoring the burning pain in his chest. The Nomu's arms fall limp to its sides.
Shigaraki screeches now. "Nomu, stop this! Kill him,kill him, kill the little brat, already!"
"I—we don't—" The Nomu rears back a bit, and it grabs their head in pain. Clearly, there's something inside the Nomu that makes it built to obey the commands of its master. "Want-- shut up, shut up!"
But the thing about human beings, that Izuku is slowly learning, is that their souls are pretty indomitable. Izuku pushes himself up, and reaches out towards the Nomu, and lets his arm turn intangible and he reaches in, until he feels it.
It's small, and weak, and it feels like tangled-up string. But it's there. The smallest of cores, built from many, many Quirks. Some from people who have passed on, others are from people who are still there, stuck, suffering, in pain. Stitched together, glued together, stuck together. Too many memories, too many shades and echoes of what and who people used to be, clashing against each other in a painful rage. It'd be beautiful, in a way, if the way it had been made was not so dark and evil.
Izuku grabs it, and pulls.
("Mama! Mama! What if I get your Quirk?"
"My Quirk? Well, it's nothing special, Izuku. I can just pull small things towards me."
"But it is cool! It's so cool! If you train it more, I bet you can be a hero, too!"
"That's very sweet of you, honey. But I don't think pulling small things is very heroic."
"You never know!")
It's so small, the core. But once Izuku pulls it out, the Nomu stops in their tracks.
"What are you—what are you doing?!"
He ignores the screams from the villain, even as he can see the warp villain, Kurogiri, appear by Shigaraki's side again. The mini core is so small and tangled, and wouldn't last on its own outside in the world.
"Thank you," the core says, voices unified for just a moment, and Izuku could give it a little bit of ectoplasm to sustain it. But what would the point of it be? The core wants to go. They all want to go.
So Izuku lets them. The tangled strings untangle themselves, and fade, one by one. All that's left is a husk of what used to be—technically a dead body, but it wasn't all that alive to begin with. The body falls to the side, motionless and lifeless, but was it ever alive to begin with?
"Nomu! Nomu, get up, and kill him already! Why isn't it listening to me, Kurogiri! Why—"
Before Shigaraki can continue his tantrum, an explosion at the front catches everybody's attention. The door goes flying, and a large figure jumps into the air, before landing in the dust of the plaza.
It's him. Izuku can tell who it is before he can even see him.
All Might. Here.
Well, that's Izuku's cue to leave. The heroes have finally arrived, which is both good and bad. Good, because the students, and especially Eraserhead, can get help. They'll all need medical help. But bad, because, well—Izuku's weak enough from the fight that they might actually have a shot at catching him for once. He doesn't have much time left in his ghost form. His legs are starting to feel shaky, his chest burns, and Izuku feels like he's going to vomit.
It's his best chance to get the hell out of there now, as everybody's distracted by the arrival of All Might.
Izuku slips invisible, and pushes whatever energy he has left into his body, soaring up and through the roof of the USJ, higher and higher until he nearly hits the clouds. This high up, he can see the ocean, and even a bit of beach. He doesn't know where he is, and doesn't have his phone on him, so he's just going to have to find his way back home using the beach and the ocean. Izuku picks a direction, and hopes for the best.
Chapter 16: Hot Take, but Relying On Friends Isn't That Bad Of a Thing
It's all over the news later that evening.
USJ Attacked by League of Villains – Who Is Responsible?
Is U.A. Really The Best Hero School?
Students, Teachers Wounded in attack at Hero School Campus
Izuku's half-paying attention to the news as it cycles through different stories from the attack. None of the students of Class 1-A—Shinsou's class, oh god, Shinsou's class—had been interviewed or had made statements. U.A. is keen on protecting their students from the media, at least. More could be said for protecting them against villains, but hey, to be fair, how would they have protected their students from a man who could make portals out of his own body.
His other half is paying attention to his latest notebook. He's up to number fifteen now. Thirteen isn't all the way full, but it's the notebook he chronicles his adventures with his powers in, so it doesn't fit very well in his analysis series books. He should really just re-number fourteen and fifteen, but he can't be bothered to scribble out the pen because then that'd look ugly. He's scribbling down everything he could remember from the villains he fought at USJ.
He really, really hopes his mom never gets curious and looks through some of his stuff. But she's nice, she wouldn't breach his privacy like that for no reason. So, he should be fine. He should be fine. She never has before. But his classmates back at Aldera—
Izuku shakes the thoughts away, jotting down a few more notes.
Shigaraki
Somewhere around his mid 20s, could be 18 at the least. Skinny, not a lot of muscle, but knows how to fight.
Quirk: Unnamed Decay Quirk (Prob. just Decay)
Five-point contact Emitter Quirk. The user's touch will decay anything it holds, both organic and inorganic.
A thought comes to him. The other day with Shinsou, he told Izuku about a bunch of journalists who broke into U.A.—what if this Shigaraki person was somehow involved? To create a diversion to sneak into U.A., grab something like a schedule of sorts for All Might, to plan their attack at the USJ? What if it's all connected?
Or maybe it isn't. Maybe it was just a coincidence. But things are rarely ever just coincidences.
Potential weaknesses:
Obv. can't be used if the user is wearing gloves that cover all their fingers, and needs constant physical contact to work.
Might not work on non-solid materials, such as viscous liquids or water.
Izuku quickly sketches out the outfit that he remembers Shigaraki wearing. A simple outfit aside from the weird collection of hands covering the man's body; just a black long-sleeve shirt and black jeans, with red sneakers.
Red sneakers?
Izuku glances up, and looks towards the entryway of his apartment. Izuku has red sneakers, too; only a few businesses in the local area sell shoes made specifically for Quirkless people, due to the fact that their feet are shaped just a little different than normal people. Most of the people Izuku sees wearing them are older, elderly people.
Could it…? How would that even be possible, for a Quirkless individual to gain a Quirk as destructive as something like the decaying Quirk?
He quickly jots down those thoughts, nearly lost in the frenzy of writing when he hears the door to his apartment open.
"I'm home, Izuku!" His mom calls out. Izuku's up late, sure; but to be fair he doesn't have to worry about getting up at a certain time for his online classes, since they're all self-guided, which has been amazing for him so far. He can stay up late, get his every-few-days sleep in, or go out on a patrol at night without worrying about falling behind in high school. "Oh goodness, honey, you need to fix up that posture!"
"Sorry, mom!" Izuku says, immediately straightening up his back from the shrimp-like position he was in before. He hadn't even noticed how bad it got until his mom points it out. "How was work?"
"A little crazy, as usual." His mom says, taking off her shoes and sliding into her slippers, and she drops her bag on the kitchen table. "Did you eat anything tonight, Izuku?"
Izuku nods, sliding the pen into the pages of his notebooks as a makeshift bookmark. "There's leftover miso soup in the fridge, if you want any!" He had been practicing some cooking during the hour he takes for his lunch breaks when he does online classes, but the miso soup isn't one of his own concoctions. He ordered it to be delivered after crashing once he got home following his escape from the USJ and woke up starving. Most of his lacerations had healed up nicely, scabbing over fast. The bumps and bruises from other injuries will take a longer to heal, but luckily he avoided getting his face hit, so most of his wounds could easily be hidden underneath his hoodie.
It doesn't mean he's not in pain; his body aches when he moves, but it's a familiar sort of ache after an intense workout. I will never take you for granted, enhanced healing, he thinks, glad he didn't have to take a chance on his theory about Trigger this time.
"Aw, Izuku, thank you! You're so sweet."
I should tell her, Izuku thinks, watching as his mom pours a bit of soup into a pot to heat it up over their stove. I should tell her the truth. About who I am. About what I am.
But what if she—he shakes that thought away. He can ignore the angsty thoughts for now. Izuku stretches and fakes a yawn. It's ten in the evening, now—typically when he does go to bed. "I think I'm gonna head off to bed. Goodnight, mom."
"Oh, yes, it is late. Sleep well, sweetie."
"You, too."
Of course, "go to bed" in Izuku's terminology has quickly transformed into a 50% chance he was going to go out on a vigilante patrol once the moon was high in the sky, but that isn't something that she should know right now. Not to mention, after all the fighting he'd done with those group of villains today, his body is starting to ache like crazy. He hasn't used that many shields since he's started practicing with them, and all the hits he'd unintentionally taken from not just the low-rate villains but the Nomu as well had left him covered in bruises. So, safe to say, he definitely isn't going to go on a patrol tonight.
Sleep would be nice. Even if he'd slept half the afternoon away, more sleep sounds absolutely divine. His body hits the bed and he doesn't even crawl under his covers before he falls into a dreamless slumber.
✨👻✨
"Tsukauchi! It's been a while since we last talked. How are things with you?"
It's nice to hear the voice of Tsukauchi Naomasa's dear friend on the other end. It had, admittedly, been a while since they had talked any further than just simple text messages to each other, but there were things he felt like his friend All Might (or, as he knew him, Yagi Toshinori) ought to know.
They had technically seen each other in person, earlier that day, at the aftermath of what the media has been calling the 'USJ Attack'. But Naomasa had been busy talking to the different students to get their facts straight, and Yagi had been helping the rest of U.A.'s staff clear out the rest of the villains who were hiding in the building still. It'd been too chaotic to try to catch Yagi in person, so a phone call hours later would have to suffice.
"I am well. I hope you are, too, after everything that's happened today."
"By the time I arrived, it seems like the major threat had already been defeated by that one vigilante." Yagi says. There's a sound of something crackling on the other end—probably the old stove that's in his apartment. It's a little late for dinnertime, but Naomasa can't judge. "What is their name again?"
"Phantom." Naomasa replies.
"Phantom! Yes. Thank you."
"Of course. Phantom is actually why I wanted to call you in the first place. What do you know about him, Yagi?"
"Well, I'm afraid not much more than the rest of the media does. Since taking up the teaching position at U.A., I haven't been able to do much more than a short patrol on my way to and from the school now. Some sort of ghost-like Quirk, right?"
Well. From his limited interactions with the vigilante—which is usually seeing his shadow fly away right after they arrive at the scene of a crime that Phantom has already taken care of—Yagi isn't wrong that it might be some sort of ghost-like Quirk. Even if the vigilante—a child, Naomasa reminds himself—has called himself a straight-up ghost in multiple reports by Aizawa, there's no way that he's an actual ghost.
But, well, it's still an unsettling thought for him. He isn't quite sure where he is in his belief in the afterlife, but maybe there's a small possibility…? No, no thanks, no disturbing thoughts about mortality today please and thank you.
Naomasa is lucky most vigilante cases fall under an unofficial fair use sort of deal between police departments. Because priorities should always be get them off the streets no matter what, it wasn't unheard of for individual officers or detectives to ask heroes or hero-adjacents with proper clearance for assistance on cases such as this. But something about what he'd heard today from all of those poor students is sending a shudder down his spine, and he needs to talk to Yagi about it, because Yagi is the only other person who would understand that feeling.
"Yes, that's what we figured when he first started. Either a ghost-like Quirk, or something that would allow himself to manipulate his own molecules to turn invisible and pass through things. But after today… Yagi, I'm not too sure about it."
"Why do you say that?"
"Well, according to what some of your students had to say today, along with some of the more agreeable villains we captured, Phantom seems to have developed a new, unrelated, Quirk. He's able to make some sort of energy shield, now."
"Developed a new… Quirk?"
"Exactly. Yagi, are you sure—"
A sigh from the other end of the phone interrupts Naomasa. "I would love to be sure that All For One is dead and buried, but with what I've been hearing about the strange Nomu creature that attacked my class, I cannot be too sure of that anymore. Do you believe Phantom is related to… him, somehow?"
"Somehow. It would explain Phantom's numerous Quirks, and his white hair."
"Phantom has white hair?"
"Ah, yes. Our unofficial description puts Phantom as a young teen or an adult, with bright cyan eyes and white hair." Naomasa adds. "Most of the time his hair is hidden under his hood, but it seems like it'd fallen off when he was fighting today."
"Hhn." The sound of a kettle goes off on Yagi's end. There's a bit of shuffling as he continues. "I don't know if All for One ever had a family past his relationship to the first holder of One for All. But it could be possible he may have had a partner and children without anyone knowing."
"That's my thought, too." Naomasa sighs. "We're lucky for the moment, as it looks like the only laws Phantom is breaking are numerous vigilante laws. It's hard to tell if it's a ploy to build up trust between him and multiple pro-heroes or if it's a teenage rebellion against All for One. For now, Aizawa is on the case to try and bring him in."
"Aizawa-san is, you say?" Yagi asks, clearly a little shocked. "I would have never thought…"
"Yes. Aizawa has been helping out with the case for a while now, though since he was hurt badly in the attack today, he'll probably be taking a break." He better, Naomasa thinks, or they're going to have to sic the whole wrath of U.A. on one Aizawa Shouta.
For a second, Naomasa wonders if Phantom would be dumb enough to try and visit the pro-hero in the hospital. It'd be a risky move. If anywhere had tranquilizers or enough Quirk suppressants to take out Phantom, it would either be Tartarus itself or any general hospital in the world.
"Tsukauchi. May I lend a hand in the investigation into Phantom?"
"Sure. It's a vigilante case, so it's open book. Maybe if the Symbol of Peace started looking into Phantom, it'd get him to stop being so risky." Stopping wannabe drug dealers and thugs is handy sometimes, but Phantom's just a kid. Phantom obviously loves heroes, so maybe the number-one hero can talk some sense into him?
✨👻✨
CATNYAP: mido mido mido mido
MINIGHOST: Shinsou Shinsou Shinsou Shinsou
CATNYAP: sos
MINIGHOST: Everything okay??
CATNYAP: so we've got the rest of the week off from class after that villain attack
CATNYAP: a bunch of my classmates are organizing a big outing to that big mall out in Tokyo tomorrow
CATNYAP: the kiyashi ward one
CATNYAP: SOS
MINIGHOST: That mall is huge! Your classmates are organizing a trip to it?
CATNYAP: it was this one girl's idea to help us get to know each other better as a class
CATNYAP: almost everyone is going but idk what to do
MINIGHOST: You should go! If your classmates invited you, it's clear they want to be your friends.
CATNYAP: hnnanannnhhh
CATNYAP: social interaction,,,,
MINIGHOST: You're going to U.A., Shinsou! You're going to have to do a lot of networking and socializing as a hero, whether you go underground or not.
CATNYAP: fhsafdfsafsd
CATNYAP: i hat eit that ur right
MINIGHOST: Do it! Go! Have fun!
CATNYAP: y'know what
CATNYAP: i will go but you're gonna come with
CATNYAP: ur the only one who will keep me sane
MINIGHOST: Huh????
CATNYAP: i might've mentioned you to a few of my classmates and they wanna meet u
MINIGHOST: What? They wanna meet me???
CATNYAP: yeah, probably because you're a pretty cool person midoriya
CATNYAP: ik you go to that fancy online school, are you able to get one day off to come with??
MINIGHOST: Well, I need to ask my mom, too.
MINIGHOST: I'm ahead on most of my lessons anyway, so I'm sure missing one day won't hurt.
CATNYAP: ヽ(°〇°)ﾉ
MINIGHOST: Okay, I just asked my mom. She said I needed to be back before 6.
MINIGHOST: But I can go.
CATNYAP: lfggg
CATNYAP: i can txt u the details in a bit
Izuku stares at his phone. The cursor in the messaging app is still blinking back at him.
Did that… just happen? Izuku knows that Shinsou is in Class 1-A. He got invited to an outing with Shinsou's classmates. He got invited to meet kids from U.A. High School. Class 1-A.
His core is humming loudly in his chest, almost purring, but it pauses, for a moment.
Wait, what if—
MINIGHOST: is, uh, Bakugou Katsuki gonna be there
CATNYAP: bakugou?
CATNYAP: WAIT
CATNYAP: IS HE K??????????
CATNYAP: THATS WHY HIS QUIRK WAS SO FAMILIAR
MINIGHOST: Yeah, he is.
MINIGHOST: I don't wanna make a big deal about it, but if he's gonna be there, I don't know if I can go
CATNYAP: dw midoriya!! i don't think he'll be there. he doesn't seem too interested in most of us.
CATNYAP: idk if anyone in my class even has his number tbh
CATNYAP: but ill check and make sure
MINIGHOST: Okay, yep, that sounds just like him. And thank you for checking, too.
Chapter 17: Just Friends being Friends. Pals being Pals. Nothing Sinister is Happing, No Sirree
Kiyashi Ward Shopping Mall lives up to its hype. It's a majestic piece of architectural work and engineering. During warmer months and sunnier days, the roof is programmed to open up to let in the fresh air and beautiful sunshine, but when it's cold or rainy, the roof will close so people are still able to walk around freely without worrying about the weather. Inside its four stories are a smorgasbord of different stores.
Kiyashi Ward is most notorious for its abundance of clothing stores tailored to fit people of various shapes and sizes, regardless of Quirk-type. Some stores sell clothing made for people with tails in mind, some stores sell clothing made for people with wings, and other stores will sell lotions and self-care products for people with Quirks that change their skin.
There are also normal stores as well, for those with typical bodies, along with a large food court stocked full of different fast-food chains and even a grocery store and large café. The mall wasn't limited to just people with Quirks that changed the way their body works, but it was one of the few in the world that accommodates them to such a level, that it has become quite a popular place in the last few decades.
Most of the stores would be useless for someone like Izuku, who had no Quirk at all, but it's strangely nice to be invited to something like this. Even if he doesn't know all the people he's going to meet.
Shinsou texted the meeting location to him late the previous night, and all should have been well, but Izuku stayed up half the night trying to figure out what he was going to do, what he would say, what he would wear. He'd never been too worried about these things, even after clearing out most of his closet to get rid of his All Might clothing, he still had a decent amount of hero merch, and would it be weird? Would he be too much of a fanboy?
Izuku eventually settles on a pair of gray cargo shorts and a simple blue t-shirt with an embroidered black hole in the top right. It's technically hero merch from the hero Thirteen, and he remembers asking his mom to buy it years ago since it was a shirt being sold to help a disaster relief fundraiser Thirteen was the face of. One lucky buyer would get an autograph included with their order to encourage more purchases, and while Izuku wanted the autograph, he wouldn't be upset getting one since the money was all going to a good cause, anyway. He didn't get it, but he did get a cool, good quality t-shirt out of it, so it's a win for him!
Once the day comes, his mom leaves a pretty large sum of money on the counter for him in the morning. It's not much by the Midoriya standards, of course—Izuku's almost all out of the money he got from cleaning Dagobah Beach—but it's enough to buy a new pair of shoes. As his mom suggests in the note she leaves.
There is a custom shoe seller at the Kiyashi Ward mall that sells shoes for Quirkless people, and maybe owning more than just a single pair of red sneakersis probably a good idea. He slides the money into his wallet, puts on his sneakers, and decides against getting on the train, transforming in the comfort of his apartment for a quick flight over to Tokyo. It'd save a few extra yen in case Izuku wants to get a snack or some food in the food court with Shinsou's classmates.
Shinsou's classmates. He'd technically seen a few of them before, aside from knowing both Shinsou and Bakugou. He wonders, as he flies through the air invisibly, if he'd officially meet the frog-girl. Her Quirk seems super cool! Or maybe—
Well, Izuku wouldn't mind not meeting that purple orb hair kid who just about burst into tears with his appearance at the USJ. Maybe he misjudged the kid on a first look, but something about that kid gave Izuku the heebie-jeebies.
Izuku's been getting faster with his flying over the last two months of patrol, so it's not too long until he spots Kiyashi Ward Mall in the distance. Glancing around, Izuku finds a surreptitious and closed off alleyway in walking distance, where he lands quietly. After checking for security cameras, Izuku detransforms, and walks out of the alley casually, blending into the crowds of people.
Shinsou is there early, too, with another girl. Unfamiliar—not the frog girl—but she looks nice. Her hair is cut into a brown bob, and her cheeks are bright pink. It's hard to tell if it's make-up or if it's natural. She's wearing just a simple black v-neck and mauve colored shorts, with a brown bag swung over one of her shoulders.
"Midoriya, over here!" Shinsou spots him and waves him over.
Izuku takes a deep breath, ignoring the jitter in his hands, and walks over to Shinsou and the girl.
"U-Um, h-hi."
"Hi! You're Shinsou's friend, yeah?" The girl smiles brightly. "I'm Uraraka Ochako! Nice to meet you!"
"M-Midoriya Izuku. And, um, same!" Woo, first successful conversation of the day. Maybe Izuku can break his record today.
Shinsou glances down as his phone buzzes. He pulls it out. "Ah. Looks like the others are just about here, too."
"Awesome! This is gonna be so much fun. I've never been to a mall this big, before."
"M-Me either." Izuku's hesitant to add, but he does, anyway. If Shinsou has to suffer with the mortifying idea of making friends, Izuku should try it out, too. He doubts that Shinsou's classmates in 1-A would really want to be his friends, especially if they find out about his Quirklessness, but it's still something he could dream about. "So, um. How many people are coming, again?"
"Not too many, actually." Uraraka says. "I think it's only Mina and Jiro who are coming."
That's only two people? That's not actually a lot, yet it feels like it is, Izuku thinks, but buries the fear deep inside of him. It's fine. It's fine. He's only going to be hanging out with actual hero course students. There's nothing to worry about.
Nothing to worry about at all. It's all going to go just fine, he just needs the paranoid part of his brain to shut up for a few minutes, and maybe for his core's buzzing to settle down, too.
It's only a few moments later when the other four hero course students arrive, and it's obvious who they are when they walk up. Ashido Mina—who insists on being just Mina to everybody—has bright pink skin, dark sclera with yellow eyes, and two golden horns sticking out from her pink hair. She definitely stands out in a crowd. Jiro Kyoka, on the other hand, stands out because she's the least energetic. Her earlobes stretch out into earphone jacks past her shoulders.
They're so cool. Izuku can't believe how cool these people are. He's definitely jealous of Shinsou, for getting such cool classmates, while Izuku's safest option is an online school where he doesn't have to interact with people at all. It's an unfortunate part of life, since he's Quirkless.
Everyone hates the Quirkless. Izuku's fine with just being in the presence of these cool people, honestly! He doesn't really need to shop anywhere right now. He can just fly back on a day he has off to get new shoes, he doesn't need to worry about that.
"What about you, Midoriya?"
"Hm?" He was spacing out a bit for a moment, so Mina's question caught him off guard.
"You live in Musutafu, too, right?" Mina asks, and Izuku nods in response. "So, what do you think about the vigilante Phantom?"
Phantom? She's asking me about—me?! Izuku really should have been paying more attention, but he can't change the past. Hopefully he can just lie his way out of this. "Well, um, I haven't seen him in person, but I hear he's pretty cool?" Well, I can't technically see myself in person, only in reflections, so it isn't even a lie.
"Really?" Shinsou asks. "I would've thought you would have more to say."
Izuku shrugs. "I-I mean, uh, I guess I've just been too focused on other things?"
He can see out of the corner of his eye Jiro is staring at him. She's stayed pretty quiet the whole trip, too, just like Shinsou—they were probably the introverts being dragged along by their extrovert friends for once. Or in Izuku's case, being dragged by his introvert friend Shinsou, who was in turn, being dragged by an extrovert. But she's staring at him with an unreadable expression.
"Well, I think Phantom is awesome!" Uraraka interrupts. She swings her fists in the air as she adds, "You should've seen him the other day! He was like all, pow-pow-pow! Those villains didn't know they had it coming?"
"W-Where did you see Phantom?"
"Oh, right, it might not be in the news. Phantom was there at the USJ attack!" Mina adds. "Uraraka and I were stuck by the entrance, so we didn't get to see much of anything, but Shinsou got a close look!"
Right. I know that, because I was there. Izuku tries to look shocked, or at least, interested in the story. "R-Really?"
"Yeah, it wasn't the, uh, first time I've seen him, though."
"Oh, yeah, you told us that!" Mina says. "He saved you from that fire at your dad's job, right?"
This is so weird! Izuku thinks, as the people around him start talking about him, without knowing it's him. Even Jiro makes a comment, like, yeah I don't think I've heard much about him, but she doesn't take her eyes off Izuku for a while.
✨👻✨
Jiro Kyoka's a little surprised that there aren't as many people going to the Kiyashi Ward Mall outing as they are; it's just her, Mina, Uraraka and Shinsou, in the end. But then Shinsou asks if he can bring his one friend, Midoriya Izuku, along with them, and everybody is fine with it. They're all fine with him, and it makes sense.
Midoriya Izuku is an unassuming person. Short, with curly green hair and freckles. The only thing of note that stands out to Kyoka is the strange scars that run up his right arm, but nobody wants to ask about that, obviously, because asking people you just met about vicious scars on their body is kinda rude. It'd be like asking Todoroki about his scar over his one eye, like, how rude.
But that's not what freaks Kyoka out the most. What her classmates don't understand yet about her Quirk is that she passively has better hearing than everybody else. If her Earphone Jacks aren't plugged in anywhere or covered, she has what could be very weak superhuman hearing. Which wouldn't matter that much to her, she's long since learned to drown out the sounds of people around her, whether they be eating, talking, or even the sound of their heartbeats.
Midoriya's heartbeat is slow.
Too slow.
It picks up a bit when they start talking about Phantom, but Kyoka can't tell if it's because he knows more than he's letting on, or if he's nervous about being included in a conversation. Same, dude, she wants to say, the vigilante Phantom's barely on Kyoka's radar. She only knows he exists because of the USJ attack a few days ago.
Eventually the conversation of Phantom quiets down, as Mina and Uraraka get distracted by a pastel pink shop. Shinsou excuses himself for a quick bathroom break, which leaves Kyoka alone with Midoriya for a few minutes.
She looks at him. He nervously flickers his eyes to her, and then away.
Eventually, he gets the courage to speak. "U-Um, why are you starting at me?"
"Your heart is really slow. Do you know that?"
"U-Uh, yeah. I do." Midoriya waves his right hand, showing off the scars decorating it. It's a fascinating pattern. She can't put a word to it, but it's an intricate pattern of tessellating scar tissue, looking more like frost on a window than an actual scar. "I was, um—struck by lightning a few months ago, and the doctors said my heart's just beating slower because of it, now."
"How?" That doesn't make much sense to Kyoka. Her family might not be doctors—they're all musicians, of course—but even that doesn't make sense.
Midoriya shrugs. "Dunno. The doctors didn't explain it to me."
"They're doctors, why wouldn't they?"
"It's. Um. A long story, I guess." Midoriya replies, looking down at his feet. "Sorry. I'd rather not talk about it."
Kyoka nods. "Sorry for bringing it up. I just wanted to make sure you knew."
"T-thank you. So is, uh, that your Quirk, then? Enhanced hearing?"
Kyoka nods. She swings one of her earlobes in the air. "Yeah, basically. I can plug my earphone jacks into walls and stuff to focus on hearing something, and I can channel my heartbeat through it to break stuff. It's not much."
A switch goes off in Midoriya. The meek, shy kid her age seems to disappear in an instant; instead, his eyes fill with stars, and for a second, it looks like they pulse a soft, blue glow. "It's not much? That's such a cool Quirk, Jiro! You have support tech that will help you amplify that noise, right?"
"U-Uh, yeah--" Shinsou decides to make that his turn to return, just as Midoriya starts prattling off about her Quirk, asking questions left and right. Her classmate smirks. She glances at him and asked in a hushed voice, "Is he always like this?"
Midoriya keeps talking. It's good analysis, and Kyoka should be paying attention, but she isn't.
"You got him talking about your Quirk, didn't you?" Shinsou's learned how to do Aizawa-sensei's smirk, somehow, and it's just as unsettling as when their teacher does it.
It would've been nice to at least get a warning that this is what Midoriya can be like.
✨👻✨
"I am still unsure of how that boy destroyed the Nomu, master."
"Don't concern yourself over the Nomu we lost. Dr. Garaki. How is development going on our new experiments?"
"Very well, master. Two of the four Nomu we have been working on seem to be responding positively to the changes to their Quirk Factors. The third Nomu is unfortunately rejecting the changes, while I have yet to add any additional changes to the fourth's factors."
"When do you believe these Nomu will be done?"
"I am sure I can have them done soon. Not before the Sports Festival, unfortunately."
"That is fine. We do not need to risk any more attacks after the failure of the USJ invasion. It will be more beneficial to watch the festival, anyway."
"How so, Sensei?"
"It will be the easiest way for us to see the potential in the next generation, after all…"
Chapter 18: This Couldn't Get Any Worse, Could It?
Shouta's only out for a day.
Shuzenji was able to heal most of his wounds after he'd been rescued by Phantom from that monster of a creature, but the exhaustion and lack of stamina caught up to him. He wakes up in the middle of the night inside a hospital room, the only noise being the heart monitor attached to him beeping in sync with his heartbeats.
It's quiet, and Shouta would love to just roll over to sleep, but something's nagging at him. It feels like he's being watched. And then he understands.
"…Phantom?" His voice is a little raw and scratchy, and he mumbles it out, but sure enough, the vigilante appears in his room just a moment later.
"Hi, Eraser-san." Phantom's voice—usually the annoying teen voice—is softer, now. The hood that is usually up, covering most of his hair, is down, letting the curly white hair loose. His mask is, strangely, down, showing off what Shouta had feared the most, once upon a time—a child's face stares back. The baby fat still sits snugly in his cheeks, and his face is decorated with a dusting of glowing freckles.
Shouta had hoped if he had ever seen Phantom's face, that he would recognize the boy.
Preferably as a student at U.A., it didn't have to be his class, but any class. He'd begun memorizing the faces of all the General Education students just in case. The likeliness was low, but if anyone were to try to become a vigilante, it would probably be a General Education student who had been snubbed by the Entrance Exam for a weaker Quirk.
At least, if he could recognize Phantom, he could find Phantom in his civilian life and get him to stop it. Before the police got involved. A teenage vigilante situation is delicate. Not entirely unheard of, of course, Shouta had seen and heard of a few teenage vigilantes in his lifetime, but they're extremely fragile. Whether that be the hormones of puberty or their life circumstances, teenage vigilantes tended to have more capricious lives than adults. Police could scare them off easier, and then they wouldn't be caught, again. Adult villains would take advantage of them, groom them into villains on their own, and they'd be lost to the vicious cycle, again.
He doesn't know whether to be upset or glad that Phantom doesn't look familiar to him. Well, not entirely—there's something about the way Phantom's cyan eyes look at Shouta that rings as something in Shouta, but he can't tell. Perhaps he had saved Phantom, once, as a civilian? That would be impossible to narrow down—Shouta saved a lot of people, all the time.
"What are you doing here?" Shouta asks, keeping his voice as low as possible. It might be the middle of the night in a hospital, but that doesn't mean there aren't any prying ears or eyes. The only way he had been able to convince Tsukauchi to get rid of the undercover officers guarding him was to say that Phantom wouldn't even consider the risk of visiting a hospital wing because it might be the only place that had enough suppressants to actually take him down.
Yet, clearly, Phantom didn't even think—or care—about that possibility, as here he is, floating in Shouta's room.
He's only partially visible, though. Shouta can see the wall and chair across the room through the boy. Maybe, he did think something through (for once) with this reckless idea.
"I just wanted to check in on you." Phantom says. "How are you doing?"
"I'm…" Shouta pauses for a moment, and studies Phantom again. He tries to memorize the way the boy's face curves, the way his nose looks, anything about him, so maybe Shouta could try and find him as a civilian, but his brain still feels like tired mush from everything. "The doctors said I'll be fine, just some scarring."
Phantom nods, though Shouta can't help but notice the way he falls, a bit.
"You did the best you could, Phantom."
"I—I know, I just." Phantom sighs. He curls his legs into his body while he's floating a few feet off the ground. "I don't feel like I did enough."
Ah, yes. That's a feeling Shouta knows well. He sighs, ignoring the pain in his ribs that flares up when he does. "You were reckless. I don't know how, or why you were with that group of villains in the first place, and when you got to the USJ, you could have easily flown off and fled instead of getting involved like you did." Phantom flinches at the scolding. God, Shouta feels like he's scolding one of his students right now. And maybe that's not too far off—Phantom does feel like a student, enrolled or not. "But I can't say that your help that day wasn't… appreciated."
"Oh. Uh. T-Thanks." Phantom glances away, nervously pulling his mask up to hide his face again.
This kid, Shouta thinks, before continuing. "I heard about what happened with that creature—the Nomu. I know it's hard, sometimes, but killing—"
"I didn't kill it." Phantom interrupts, sharply. It's uncharacteristic enough that Shouta stops completely, and just blinks at the vigilante. "I—it—they—they were already dead to begin with, like me. I just freed them."
Dead to begin with. The words echo in Shouta's mind. Like me. Like me, dead to begin with. I'm a ghost. I don't have a Quirk. I'm a ghost, I'm a ghost, I'm a ghost—
Shouta doesn't believe in ghosts. He never has—it's an illogical thought. If human souls—if that concept even exists—were to persist after death, wouldn't they have figured that out by now? Wouldn't one of those charlatans on the TV who claimed to have a Quirk that allowed them to communicate with the dead be found to be fully, 100% truthful? Wouldn't there be some sort of evidence? Some sort of proof?
Phantom speaks about death and ghost with such conviction, such familiarity that Shouta's starting to doubt his beliefs.
"Oh." Shouta finally formulates his response. "I'm sure they… appreciated… it."
"It's okay if you don't believe me." Phantom says, quietly flickering out of view. "Nobody's ever believed me."
After a few moments, it feels like Shouta is by himself. Even though he's alone, he still calls out to Phantom. "Don't do anything reckless, kid."
I can't help you if I'm stuck in here, he wants to say.
The chill disappears from the room, and Shouta eventually falls back into a dreamless sleep.
✨👻✨
Don't do anything reckless, kid.
Izuku feels a little hurt by Eraserhead's comment, but he supposes it is fair advice. But he's not going to be doing anything reckless, no sirree! Nothing reckless. Just—maybe he's doing to be patrolling an extra night or two in the week (when he's already doing three patrols a week) just to try and help out a bit more while Eraserhead is out of commission.
It's not going to be a permanent thing. Izuku needs his sleep as much as any other human, he just needs marginally less than a full human. He can survive for a little bit with a little less sleep if that means one more person is able to go home to their family every night. One less victim on the streets. One less body to count.
It's not like it hasn't been weighing on him—everything, really, but specifically the Nomu "thing". He hears their voices in his dreams, sometimes. Calling out for help. Crying out in pain.
Who did this? Why would they do this? How could they do this to people?
Innocent or not, people died to make that Nomu. Something that Izuku couldn't stand for.
A hunt into more information on the League of Villains leads nowhere on the streets. For any low-rate villains Izuku is able to find, they just say that they didn't take Shigaraki up on the cash offer (it smelled bad, or wasn't worth it, in their words), or they don't know anything about the League of Villains. The police arrested most of the villains who had attacked the USJ days ago, but Izuku isn't interested in trying his luck with breaking into prison.
The hospital might've been risky, but he needed to know if Eraserhead was okay or not. Seeing the hero bandaged up—but alive, alive, he's alive—lifted Izuku's spirits that night (pun intended). But don't do anything reckless—when has Izuku ever done anything reckless?
Well, except the time he got into the Accident. Oh, and the time he'd stopped a mugger, when he transformed for the first time. And the other crimes he's stopped. And the theft with Sakura where he got shot with Trigger. And the experiment he did with Trigger. And sneaking into the League of Villain's meeting that led to the USJ—okay Eraserhead mighthave a point with Izuku's reckless behavior, actually. But Izuku's not going to let a small reckless streak stop him.
He'll only stop this when he's either caught or fully dead, and Izuku's pretty sure the latter can't even happen to him.
It's another gang of villains he's stopping. There's four of them, three of them have visible Quirks—the lady can control the length of her hair, one man has a penguin-mutant Quirk, the other man has either an alligator or crocodile tail, can't tell the difference from this far away—but he can't get a guess on the blond dude with the face mask.
"Shit, it's Phantom!" Crocodile tail yells, once Izuku drops his visibility and jumps into the fray.
It started out as a cruel four-versus-one attack. A random guy was surrounded by these four villains, some sort of mugging or attempted theft. Once Izuku jumps into the fight, he can see from the corner of his eye the man run away as fast as he could, good for him. Hopefully he'll call the police.
He doesn't realize he's in a bit over his head at first. Fighting four people at once—after what happened at the USJ—seems too easy. Crocodile tail gets his tail grabbed and he's flung into the wall of one of the buildings, not enough to kill him, but it winds him enough and he doesn't get back up. Izuku flies in a twirling motion around hair-lady to get her hair tangled up and knotted around her body, tying herself and penguin-guy in the process.
It just leaves the blond guy left.
"You're Phantom, eh?" The blond guy chuckles. "Aren't you supposed to be more talkative?"
"Aren't you supposed to not try and mug people?" Izuku bites back with a wide grin, though they probably can't see that under the mask.
Blond guy laughs and claps his hands together. A spark of electricity lights up between them, and Izuku feels something… churn in his body.
Some sort of fear, deep in his core—electricity?
Of course, electric-based Quirks aren't all that common. They're incredibly rare—Shinsou mentioned one of his classmates at U.A. has an electricity-based Quirk that always fries his brain when he uses it too much, and that's the only one Izuku can think of other than the Pro-Hero Spark, who's technically based out in America.
And even then, most people with electricity-based Quirks don't go into heroics. They're valued more in the workforce in trade jobs.
But electricity. It is what—technically—killed him. It makes sense he'd be afraid, but the absolute fear he feels coming out of his core is worrying on its own. He's afraid—and why is this happening? Why is he afraid?
The blond man's quirk seems to be similar to Bakugou's in its application, Izuku notes, as he dodges as the man lunges for him. He claps, and the electricity surges for a few moments, like his hands are AED defibrillators. That'd be so useful in the medical field, Izuku thinks glumly, as the man grunts and turns on his heel again. Why are you trying to be a criminal with it?
The man claps his hands again and grabs for Izuku's leg. Izuku tries to push himself higher into the air and out of the man's grasp, but the man manages to grab Izuku's shoe, and—
The pain—
EXPLODES.
Izuku isn't quite sure how long the electricity stays in his system. He feels just a little bit in his foot, and suddenly, the overwhelming sense of pain overtakes his system. Izuku thrashes out of the man's grip, but crashes to the ground. There's another yell and a crash, too.
After what feels like forever, his vision starts to clear, but the pain is still overwhelming. He can feel his transformation threatening to burst—Izuku holds it back with all his might, but the pain from the electricity might win him over. He looks around in the alleyway. The blond guy is on top of the dumpster, unconscious. Hair-lady and penguin-guy are still tangled up together, and the crocodile-guy is slowly getting his bearings.
I can't stay here. He takes what strength he can muster and shoots himself up into the sky. Not as fast as he'd typically like, but everything hurts and it's so painful and disorienting. He flies, and flies, and flies as far as he can away from the scene of the crime. He isn't sure what direction he's flying in until he notices he's slowly losing altitude, and eventually, he crashes next to a dumpster in another alleyway between apartments.
It's one of Musutafu's residential areas, at least; less likely a crime would occur here. Which is good, because Izuku is in an ungodly amount of pain right now.
It feels like he's dying again. The electricity is crawling up and down his arms, and it feels like he's being pulled apart and stitched back together again. His transformation threatens, again, but he pushes it down. He just needs to—wait. Be patient. Let the pain subside, then get home. Should be easy enough.
He isn't sure how long he sits here, but he eventually hears footsteps from the other end of the alleyway, and a light shines down them.
"Hello?" A familiar voice asks.
Izuku glances around the dumpster, keeping his arms pulled tightly to his chest as another wave of pain hits him.
It's Shinsou.